Abstract

Purpose – Due to today’s volatile business environment companies have started to establish a better
understanding of the total risk/benefit-balance concerning manufacturing location decisions of their
component supply. The focus is now much more on comprehensive and strategic supply chain issues rather
than simply relying on piece-part cost analysis. This has led to an emerging trend called re-shoring.
The purpose of this paper is to understand the primary motivation behind the re-shoring strategy in the UK
and investigate the factors that influence this decision from Indian industries perspectives.
Design/methodology/approach – The analysis of the paper is based on interviews conducted in the UK
and India (state of Tamil Nadu) in various industries including automotive, industrial goods, textile, and
marine. For this purpose an interview framework based on key enablers identified from the literature, being
information technology solutions, manufacturing equipment and human factors. This provided an
assessment of the capability of the companies for being responsive to western demand.
Findings – The findings indicate that re-shoring to the UK is the result of inadequacy in responsiveness and
long production lead times of the Indian suppliers. The outcome of this paper indicates that the top factors
behind this inadequacy in responsiveness are logistics and transportation, electricity shortage, excessive
paperwork and working attitude.
Originality/value – This paper aims to fill the gap in the re-shoring literature by providing a clear picture
behind the reason for re-shoring in the UK and identify the drivers behind this shortcoming in the component
supply from Indi